I once worked for the international arm of a US company at a time when we were going through what was politely known as “reduction in force” – i.e. making a lot of people redundant.  I was discussing the process with the US head of HR who asked me what security firm I would be employing and whether they would be armed.  I was surprised to say the least, and retorted that this was not the way we did things in Europe, that shooting the boss in the middle of a redundancy interview was not acceptable behaviour here.  There was a lot of pushback but eventually we did the interviews my way and I lived to tell the tale.

The recent debate over whether particular behaviour in the civil service is bullying or simply “firm management” again raises the issue. There has been outcry that such behaviour is generally “unacceptable” but it has left me wondering about how we deal with this in a business context.  After all, one person’s “unacceptable” is OK behaviour for another person. How much clarity can you create in your corporate behaviour guidelines if you have them?  What is “acceptable behaviour” and how do we create a set of rules where people are clear where the boundaries are?

Some of this is context, we can maybe agree that shouting in the office is unacceptable, but if the building is on fire then I reserve the right to shout at people to get out now.  How do you agree acceptable and unacceptable behaviours, and who agrees it?  The whole company or the senior management team?  And who polices those behaviours?  All too often the answer is nobody until the behaviour becomes so bad that serious damage has already been done – as the CBI is finding out to its cost.  We need definitions of behaviour that deal with problems in the very early stages because if there is clarity about the small transgressions, and people have the courage and backing to call them out, it can stop things getting out of hand.

My favourite approach is for a team to agree amongst themselves what is acceptable and what is not, and for the team to enforce it themselves.  That needs to be then put in the context of the overall corporate behaviours to give a level of consistency.  None of this is easy but if it can be dealt with early, in context, in a team, with courage and backing from the organisation then you can build a culture that does not spiral downwards to a point where terrible damage is done.